Every Single Album - '21' | Every Single Album: Adele

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

With '21' Adele enters the next phase of her career with a lot more resources behind her. Nathan and Nora talk about how the success of '19' set her up for her next album (1:00), the power behind songs like "Rolling In The Deep" and "Someone Like You" (17:52), and how the throat surgery she had during this time affected her voice (39:41). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ringer Films and HBO's third installment of the music box series is listening to Kenny G. The film takes a humorous but incisive look at the saxophonist Kenny G, the best-selling instrumental artist of all time, and quite possibly one of the most famous living musicians. Listening to Kenny G unravels the allure of the man who played jazz so smoothly that a whole new genre formed around him and questions fundamental assumptions about art and excellence in the process. You can find Listening to Kenny G on HBO or HBO Max on Thursday, December.

second. Hello and welcome to every single album, Adele. I'm Norpensiotti. I am a staff writer at the Ringer. And I am here, as always, with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you on this fine Tuesday? It's a Tuesday while we're recording this. Let's do 21. So, we are going to do 21, Adele's second album, which we're here to talk about today. However, we keep getting hit by news right when we're said to record pods, Nathan. Do you think that we've like angered the podcast gurus in some way? I think they're just trying to keep the meat fresh, and we appreciate it. We're talking about older albums. It's nice to sort of mix in with the story of why we're doing this podcast overall,

which is because this is one of the, if not in this moment, the largest artist in the world. And she's announced a residency in Las Vegas. Can I confess something to you, Nathan? What? She's Elvis? What is this? I've never been to Las Vegas. What? I've never been to Las Vegas. I don't really get it. Come on. I've seen the hangover.

You've never been. I've never been. I actually don't think I've ever even flown through. Well, nobody flies through. It's not like a, it's not like a, it's not like a, it's not like a, it's not like a hub or anything. You've never been to fit. Okay, well, now we know what we're doing between January and April. I'm excited. Let's do this. She's going to play 24 shows. In a small venue, we'll talk more about it. But it's a very, very interesting moment, as we'll discuss, because what starts to come to light through the course of 21

is this is an artist who has some paper thinness to what is otherwise the biggest voice in the world in many ways. And the fragility of it is actually what's driving this announcement today. But I think we're going to talk more about that. as we get into the wonders of 21. We are going to talk more about it, and particularly we'll talk more about it in terms of what you just were mentioning,

which is how her performance choices and her touring choices relate to what's happened with her voice and her health as it pertains to her voice over the course of her career. We'll definitely get into that a bunch. Just from the perspective of more artists being interested in doing residencies, residency adjacent

type things with their live events programming because you are the live events wizard and I saw you tweet threading and I know you have thoughts. Will you give us just quickly banner bullet point thoughts on her deciding to do this maybe as opposed to a standard multi-leg, multi-city tour

or anything else that she could have done because she's Adele, so she can do a lot of things. I think the idea of residences is growing and taking root in the artist community. And it is because... Sorry, I'm already cutting you off. But by the way, she'd said... She'd mentioned doing a residency in Vegas. And if there wasn't fucking space.

There's always space if you're Adele. There's always space if you're Adele. That's what we've figured... I mean, you know, Katie Perry, you're out of here. Like, whoever they've kicked out of Caesar's... Sting? No thanks, buddy. I love you, Sting, but you're out for Adele. My dad loves Sting. Don't say that. The reality is that these things are really taking hold, and it's because

artists are not scalable resources. They're not sort of infinite, right? They're, an artist can only play so many shows, and so they are scarce. And that is what drives the secondary market. It is why artists now have to, have to, make really difficult choices because they can only play so many shows over the course of a year or two years. That means there's a ton of markets that they can't get to. And that's what's exciting, by the way, about some of the virtual streaming stuff that we saw, the concerts inside Fortnite and Roblox during the pandemic. But to bring it back to Adele and residencies in general, it's a hell of a lot cheaper because you don't rent a bunch of tour buses and you only have

one load in and load out. And so you just kind of show up and play the show. It's a hell of a lot Vegas loves it because it brings in high rollers from all over the place and they end up in the caninos and the restaurants and the like. And for Adele, it is a much, and any other artists, it is a much easier way to make money than going through the rigmarole and the slog of going city to city town to town, which for Adele clearly had an impact on her ability to keep her instrument healthy. And what we know is that. that the tour that she went on in 21, before 21, the touring that she was actually able to do,

because she canceled, as we talked about through 19, she canceled a bunch of her 0809 North American tour because she wanted to stay home with her boyfriend, who really gets it pretty good on 21 as a result. But during that tour, she spent a lot of time in the American South, listening to a lot of the music that her southern bus driver was playing during smoke breaks, and that at the core had a lot of influence on what was a jarringly and refreshingly

different sound on 21 than, you know, as we spoke about, the effective demo tapes that sometimes sounded like they ran out of money sung over by this beautiful voice that was 19. Yeah, this is big budget. We're not exactly penny-pitching by the time we get to 21. But it's how big of a budget it is. It massively, massively outperformed expectations. It's great that they put money behind, and not only they put money,

they put a lot of names behind the best new artist, a Grammy winner, but I don't think anybody expected this. How could they possibly have expected this? So in terms of what the this is, I'm going to hit you with a true false. Okay. True, False. Adele's 21 is the biggest album of the 21st century.

100% true. It is the 19th best-selling album of all time. She is the only one. 33 albums have sold more than 30 million copies. Hers is the only one that was recorded after 2000. Whoa. That's insane. Yeah. And isn't a lot of that, like, greatest hits compilations, too? I mean, yes, there's all kinds of nonsense. There's a couple Celine Dion records in there, you know. But it's all albums.

The usual. It's really albums that were recorded in the 70s, in the 80s, Michael Jackson albums, Fleetwood Mac. Albums that were all physical productions. By the time that she's making these albums, we're in this post-Napster music business, where sales have been upended and record labels stock and value are in the toilet because nobody can really see through the haze to where we are today, by the way, which is that a young man named Daniel Eck is going to, along with an older gentleman named Steve Jobs, are going to invest in the technology product to help reinvigorate and reinstate the value of music. But at the time,

it wasn't totally clear. And so the fact that someone in the 21st, century found a way to get that many people to buy that many albums is, you know, just on its own and incredible feat and speaks to the enormous power that this woman has amassed over the last 10 years since this album came out. One of the things that we should explore today as we talk about the phenomenon that was 21 is why. What is it that makes this music and this person so relatable? So we will do a lot of the why as we get into categories. I want one more explanation from you on the how, because there were some specific tactics that they did with the rollout of this

designed to get people buying the album more and more and more, right? Well, tell me. So she did just an immense press tour with this. Right. 19 is a little choppy. No one really knows who she is. She has the difficulty breaking in in the U.S. By the time you get to 20... Saturday Night Live happens. By the way, I won't spoil it, but there's going to be a Saturday Night Live reference on this pod. I'm sorry. Okay. It's unavoidable. Okay. Let's do it.

But they clearly knew they had something with this. I don't know that there was any way to know how big it was going to be. But she... She is sitting for interviews. She's on every late night show. She is making the rounds. And I believe when you go back, even through the tour history, I was looking through to see some of the cancellations. There were a lot of things you have to sift through because there were a certain amount of dates where they weren't part of the legs of tours that she had to cancel. But they would show up as date changes because they would switch her from a smaller,

venue to a larger one. Yeah. Like there was some stuff going on where the on ramp to superstardom, like she has been placed on that. And one of the things that I think will be fascinating while we talk about this is to a more subtle degree than with 19, just because that was the first, but still existing, is this tension between knowing that there's absolutely something here, but still not quite, what, whether it's the label in certain instances,

whether it's her and other instances, there are some points of confusion where, you know, somebody thought something wasn't going to work that ended up working really well. Yes. Or kind of the opposite. Yes. So while this vaults her,

you can see the work a little bit, which I think is really interesting. Yes, they published a lot of the work around this. It's clear that the record label understood they had an enormous talent. It is also clear that there was never consensus around how to get the most out of it on 19. And there is a lot of work that gets published in 21.

I still will say from the touring perspective, I mean, she was playing a fewer than 3,000 people at the Beacon Theater. She was playing a House of Blues in 2011 on these tours. Those dates that she canceled, I mean, she was going to play the Ryman Auditorium, which is in Nashville and very famous venue. But, I mean, the Ryman is only like 2,360 people. So you were still, as this meteor is exploding through the sky,

you were still able to go see this artist in a very small intimate environment as they were still figuring out the actual size of her star. Now, behind the scenes, like you said, she's working with Rick Rubin. He's been stalking her. He's come to a ton of her live shows. He's got a whole vision on how to manage this album, half of which, and maybe more than half of which, she seems to reject. Ryan Tetter, writer of Beyonce, and many others.

In his own right, a great songwriter for his band latches on and participates. She ends up publishing a lot of the songs that she wrote with him. But there is still this push and pull between we know we have the voice. What exactly is it that we do with it? And this is a constant theme through the course of a lot of the albums that Adele has put out. Hey, Nathan. You want to know where Rick Rubin first spotted Adele? Live from New York, it's Saturday nights.

Hey, there it is. Well, who can blame him? I mean, he knew there was something there. But, like, I don't know. I mean, Rick Rubin, you know, he's an absolute legend. He's produced the Beastie Boys. He produced Jay-Z. There's a great documentary footage of him talking to some of the Beastie Boys, I think, in studio

before they ever see Jay-Z about, like, the genius of him and how he just goes in and just it's all off the top of his head. And then he doesn't. You just see the guys, like, absolutely shocked. But he does, he has a little, I mean, it's all about the vibes. It's like, it's like Steve Nash coaching the Brooklyn Nets. Like, he's got real coaches everywhere. And it just, what is Steve Nash?

There's like a serious defensive coach, serious offensive coach. Steve Nash is in charge of vibes. That's what Rick Rubin was in charge of. All vibes in there right now. All vibes. But Adele didn't love the vibes. And she scrapped a lot of the work that she did with them.

There's something off about those recordings. She ends up going back to many of the original writers and asking them to produce the songs. And so there is that push pull with the label. It goes all the way to the very last song. someone like you, which, you know, she, she fought with the record label about whether that was going to be stripped down or more produced. And as usual, Adele usually comes out, correct. Well, we'll talk more about Rick Rubin's involvement in this album because there's a lot to

talk about there. It's a little bit of an odd situation, I think, but odd guy. We'll talk about that when we get to most important collaborator, but you can't have a hit album without a hit song. we will start in our categories with the biggest hit from this album. What you got, Nathan? Well, I think it's rolling in the deep. It's the bop. It's the one that got that crowd of, like, weirdly casted and classed celebrities at the Observatory in L.A. on the Oprah special. It's the one that got everybody out of their chairs and dancing to her songs. It's sort of a hard one to follow in a set list because of the nature of most of the rest of her songs. But my question for you is, what does rolling in the deep mean?

Well, so this is amazing. That is actually not my answer, and it was kind of the answer I wanted to give. So I'm glad that we get to argue about this a little bit. Good. It is a play off of the expression, roll deep, which to Adele means to have somebody's back. I do not think that it is like roll tied. Okay. I think it's a little...

Well, I guess, look, if you roll deep with someone, you support them in the way that a supporter of the Alabama Crimson Tide would support the Alabama Crimson Tide. How about that? Okay.

But even she thought this was too confusing, right? I mean, rolling in the deep, I think was going to be the name of the album. Yeah, but she didn't think anybody would know what it meant. I think that's wise. Yeah. So she did this with Paul Epworth, and it really is just a big middle finger to her ex.

we know right out of the gate that this is yet again a you have pissed me off album from Adele. Yeah. So the order in which the songs on this record were recorded is interesting because she went in for a session and was really determined not to write sort of big sad ballads like the ones that were on 19. and she came up with a bunch of songs, but the only one that she really liked ended up being take it all. The rest, she just kind of scrapped. And she's sort of in this relationship and it's not going great,

but she's still in it. And she didn't creatively seem to have another place to go. Well, then that relationship ended. And she goes into the studio and by her own telling just screams. and that's what this song is born out of. And it's a revenge song, right? And you hear that.

And I love rolling in the deep. I chose someone like you as the biggest hit just because I think it's had a little bit more overall performance. It's got more plays on Spotify. And I just think it's like the quintessential Adele song. But rolling in the deep, I actually prefer. So I'm psyched that you chose that. Well, sell me on someone like you.

So, yeah, it's just the quintessential Adele kind of a banger, not a banger like Rolling in the Deep, but just like a tear-jurking ballad, holy crap, only Adele can sing this song. Again, I like rolling in the deep better, but I do think that like we talked about on 19 a little bit, there's a certain power to the songs where she combines just pure vocal ability and amazing, amazing singing with a little bit more story than you get on some of the other songs. And someone like you, I mean, it starts with pure narrative, right? I heard that you settled down. I let you settle down. This is right after she finds out that her ex is engaged.

And it's this amazing song to me because she's not at all getting closure from it, but she's also not angry. You know, she calls him Old friend. Old friend. Why are you so shy? Yeah. I wish nothing but the best for you. There's an alchemy to that that's really uncommon, I think.

because it's just this huge song of real pain that doesn't have anger in it. Well, and a lot of the rest of the album does. Right, right. And again, I don't know that I, in my heart of hearts, want to put it on more. Like, I think I'm always going to want to hear rolling in the deep more often than I'm going to want to hear someone like you. But someone like you, I think some is a bigger accomplishment. in some ways.

Well, you bring up an important point that we touched on but I think is worth reiterating and that's that the flow of this album matters, the sequence matters in the same way that the flow of 30 really matters because it does start angry

and there is some sort of guttural gristle and wailing and anger and bitterness in the early part of this album that then finally goes through those stages of grief and ends up with this beautiful acceptance at the end with someone like you. I have someone like you not as her biggest hit, but as her best song.

The most interesting thing for me about someone like you is it didn't actually chart that well coming out of the gate as the second single. And then she goes on the Brit Awards and sings it, and the next day it shoots the number one and it goes everywhere. There is just something about the opening line of this song that I can't get over how much I love it. I don't believe that the chorus takes me away, right? We know that the label wanted more of an arrangement,

and can you blame them, by the way, like one of the questions that we're going to have to explore starting on this album is how many piano ballads can Adele sustain? Yes. How many of those can she sustain? But there's just something... Good father Steinway.

To me, there's something here. It's just this sort of ultimate melancholy loss, but no panic. Just the certainty of something being over, which as you said she'd heard about. I mean, she comes in late on the second verse, or maybe she comes in early on the first. She comes in on the four

and the first verse with that I heard. And on the second verse, she comes in, like, after the one beat. There just is something almost perfect about that intro line. And it's almost like she's not sure if she even wants to say anything. Yeah. It's almost like it might be too painful. Should I even venture into this territory? Right.

And after rumor has it, this wonderful mirroring of I heard. And our own, Ringer's own Sean Fennacy called her voice a near- shrieked whisper on the chorus. Which I think it is a wonderful description of what happens on the back parts of those choruses. So I just want to ask, though, outside of that opening line, like, lyrically, and I'm arguing that this is her best song because there's just something about it, but the chorus loses me just a little bit. Do we love this song lyrically? Well, we do. I do. I don't know that I love it lyrically because of the chorus.

though. So what's your favorite song? So my favorite, my favorite song on this album is Rolling in the Deep. So we had them switched. Yeah. There's something about someone like you that I think is more impressive. But rolling in the deep is the one that I want to turn on and play over and over and over again. It's the one that, you know, you get far enough along in and I get a little like tingle of dopamine and just go, oh my God, I love this song. Like the song. Like the song. The Stomps rule. And that's both that those influences that she got touring through the South,

listening to different music than she listened to much of before. It's also that more aggressive sound that I think Epworth did a lot of sort of coaxing out of her and also just that she was ready to give. I mean, again, she said, she told the Times of London that she literally, quote, went in the studio and screamed. And I don't think, I guess we'll never know. I don't think she's saying that she actually went in there and screamed and wailed. I think she's saying she went in there and she did this.

And look, relative to Mastro's Lounge Singer that we heard a few years ago at this point, like, this is screaming. And it really hits me. It's really, it's exciting. So let me ask you, given that we're talking about biggest hits, and Best Song. And you said that it's rolling in the deep becomes appointment listening for you. This is one of the biggest albums of all time. That is not a debate. Is it

appointment listening or is it background music? Are there songs on here that you go back to again and again? Or is this something that you put on in the background and it is a Rick Rubin vibe? You know what? That's a really interesting. question because I will be honest, I haven't gone back and listened to this whole album all that much before we started doing this. But the more time that I spent with it, the more I feel like the whole thing is stronger than I realized. Yeah. There are, so first of all, I should just admit

one of my central truths of this album, which is that other than Rolling in the Deep, my favorite song, the best song, but my favorite song, the one that I want to listen to the most, is I'll be waiting. Because it's a Sweet Home Alabama, cross with Scissors sisters, cross with the Blues Brothers? Heck yeah, and I'm a sucker for horns.

Yeah, it totally steals the licks. I mean, this is an absolute lift. Yeah, but it's great. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that you're into that song. I mean, it's fun to listen to. I agree. And that is the point.

I mean, it's like, as we talk about someone like you, how many piano ballads can we handle? Like, take it all. Okay. A beautiful song. But like, it sounds like the Eagles Desperado. Your prison is what. But it's also Say You, Say Me by Lionel Richie.

Stay You Together. And truly. And this is going to be the challenge of her career. Even that Oprah special, it was like, okay, there was only one time when the crowd really was up and bopping. And maybe we can blame Egg White because he wrote this song. But it's an example of, like, maybe our ears just become accustomed to it. Maybe, you know, it just becomes sort of background music. And then, of course, you get to the end and the final chapter of this album jumps and grabs you by the throat.

because the song is so terrific. But I do think as we go forward, that is going to be the question. Do you come in specifically and pick individual songs? Or is she Steve Nash coaching the Brooklyn Nets managing the vibes?

All vibes in there right now. All vibes. You're just going to be on this Steve Nash thing this whole episode, aren't you? So I'm with you. I do think, though, she's always been, she's clearly always had a good editor.

One thing that I think works in Adele's favor is that, look, this is a 48-minute standard version of this album, right? So when I'm at the point where I think that, okay, rolling in the deep, rumor has it, turning tables, I don't play a ton, but could. Don't you remember I don't play all that much? Set fire to the rain. definitely play I'll be waiting

definitely play someone like you if I'm not playing it all the time it's because it's just too intense so that's seven of 11 tracks that I think have some real lifespan to that

okay well so you said she needs a good editor and that would imply I think she has a good editor she has a good editor well so who is that editor and is that person your most important collaborator?

Well, so I actually think the editor, the good editor might actually just be Adele because it seems like she tends to have, she tends to be the driving force behind. No, these songs don't work. These songs are not going to be on it. We're scrapping these. Like that, I think, tends to come from her.

And I think it's effective. Her most important collaborator, really what I'm saying by this, because I chose Mr. Dan Wilson from Semi-Sonic and from treacherous fame. The co-writer on two songs, don't you remember and one and only that I think are fine, but nothing particularly special.

But then also the co-writer on someone like you. I don't think they're terrible. Oh, they're terrible. They're not terrible. Nothing Adel sings is. terrible. Well, no, nothing she sings. I'm talking about the songs. Don't you remember is a pretty unremarkable song. Like, the key change does not save it. Why don't you remember? It's blah. And one and only is like, I mean, it's every six, eight waltz that's ever been written. It's just this

empty vessel for her voice. Don't you think? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter for two reasons. One, someone like you. On the strength of that alone, I believe that we can put him up there. Yeah, Hall of Fame batters hit 300. Dan Wilson's hitting 300 on this album. Dan Wilson is hitting 300 on this album. Second of all, the larger point here is that I don't think we can give it to Rick Rubin. No. You can't. She is one of the only artists who was like, actually the work. that I did with Rick Rubin sucked, I'm going to go do it with the semi-sonic guy. I mean, that takes balls.

It really does. I mean, he was like... Tiger King II-sized balls. Yeah, he was co-head of her label. And she pushed back on a lot. You know, he tried to set up, capture the live feel with musicians in the moment. I mean, he did a lot of work

to try to bring this thing to life. And she kind of really only used a shell of the work that they did. And all of the stats, if we're metrics driven, say she was right on. I mean, on every, every big decision that she made here. Let's illuminate the details of this a little bit.

Because originally, Rick Rubin was supposed to be, like, the producer of this whole album. Oh, yeah. And she'd done demos. Vibe Central and producer of the whole album. Producer of vibes, producer of 21. But so Adele had done demos for, a bunch of these songs with other producers,

and then she was going to re-record them and work on them with Rubin. And she goes and does that. And then ultimately, she's like, yeah, the first takes were better. I don't like how this is turning up. Yeah. I think the thing that is interesting here is that was happening on, as you said, those really, really big songs, like rolling in the deep, set fire to the rain, that ended up being the drivers of this album.

And there was just something about the energy, the vibes, maybe. Maybe the vibes weren't so good if you're Adele. Maybe Adele didn't love the vibes. And they ended up scrapping it. And again, to your point, it seems as though she was proven right. So while I'm sure something about the name affiliation

was helpful, it doesn't seem like the vast majority of his work on this album really fit the direction they were going. I think that's right. I think she is CEO of Adele Inc. and part of what Adele Inc. does is it makes great music. And she just was dissatisfied with a lot of the songs that she recorded.

And she definitely did go back to some of those early takes to be sure. but she went back into the studio with some of the writers themselves to help produce the songs that she wanted. I mean, you know, we know that on the first album, a lot of those things were demos. We know that here she ended up keeping a lot of the demo vocals.

But I think, you know, even when they heard someone like you, they wanted her to go in and do it with Rubin and his band, and she just said, no, this is a song just for piano. And she was right. She was right. The funny thing is, I mean, at that point, Rick Rubin would have sort of been head honcho of quasi alt rock country Americana, which was in some way the major influence of the sounds that Adele was suddenly really interested in.

So I wonder, and we don't know, or at least I don't know, I wonder what the connection point of, oh, other than the label affiliation. but the decision to have him be the guy to do the album was, and if it had anything to do with that, because there's a lot of things that would make it seem like this would have worked, but it didn't seem like it worked particularly well. Well, I think your point on the energy is the one that's right. When she turns on the mic the first time, it felt like she just kept coming into the studio pissed off.

This was not a relationship where she was bearing a, bunch of guilt and sorrow and feeling responsible for the demise of the relationship. She was coming into the studio angry and turning on microphones. And so it's no surprise that you capture that raspiness of her voice, those moments when she's yelling at this ex-boyfriend and trying to hurt him, which we don't hear on 30. We didn't hear on 19. We hear that sort of aggressive, I am angry and I'm... I am trying to break your heart.

Yeah. There are threats. Don't underestimate the things that I will do. That's a threat. Absolutely. And so it's not a surprise that when she turns on the mic, that it's usually that first take. You can get lost if you just keep going over and over and over again. Anybody who creates anything knows that on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 500th time, it all just starts to become a blur.

But Tedder did rumor has it with her. and she crushed it in one take and blew him away. And like really blew his mind. He had to just sit there with his jaw on the floor and say, in all my days, no one's ever done that. Yeah. I don't think Brian Tudder said in all my days, but... No, I'm sure he didn't.

But, I mean, the dude's been in the studio with Beyonce, so he knows what a vocal performance is like. And just fast forward to... Also been in the studio with Taylor Swift. There you go. Fast forward to... On a little song called I Know Places. I heard you like it.

That I like very much. I've heard. So if we fast forward to what we saw on To Be Loved when she turned the cell phone on sort of a bit awkwardly and sang it single take, blowing out the laptop camera in the process, you can still there hear just, it's jaw dropping,

to hear somebody who nails every single note. I mean, and the truth is, in today's music business, there just aren't a lot of artists who can or even need to do that because there's so much technology in the software, Pro Tools, plugins that can correct every single problem. And we hear that in live performance. We definitely hear it in recorded music. But for Adele, part of the majesty of this artist

is that she doesn't need it. There's no gimmicks. There's nothing that's hidden. It is all out front. And when you go see her live, it's going to sound like what you hear on the album. And that is the consistent theme. Teter had the experience. Rick Rubin went to see her live and had the experience.

Someone like you was 36th on the charts. She sings it at the Brit Awards again. And immediately it goes to number one. We all have that experience of seeing sort of, again, the majesty of this instrument at play that needs no Rick Ruben. It needs no introduction. And so perhaps this was Adel's way of putting herself out front with no safety net and no one else to potentially take credit. You know, if you want to make the Taylor comparison, it's sort of pre and post red for Taylor, right? Who finally said, no, I want to be the one. I do the writing myself. I do the producing myself. Right. You know, this is for me. So yours is not Rick Rubin.

Yours is also apparently not Dan Wilson. No. Who is your most important collaborator? It's her throat surgeon. I mean, thank God for this guy. This is one. Dr. Steven Zytles. Is that his name?

Dr. Zidels. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you, Dr. Zidels. Because, you know, without him, we would have lost the majesty of that voice. And I do think, you know, this is another show. she's had to cancel a whole lot. And this time, again, it wasn't because she wanted to be with her boyfriend. Obviously, it was because she had some real problems.

She canceled nine North American dates due to laryngitis. She had to postpone seven European dates because of a chest infection. And then in October of the same year, she had to cancel 10 sold out North America shows, which was about half the tour because of vocal hemorrhaging. You know, again, she would have played venues like the Riemann, which are small, But I mean, part of this is, look, one angle was, oh, my God, she must have lost so much money doing that. Well, the average ticket price of those shows was about like $43. So that means she lost out on $2.5 to $3 million.

But the secondary market for those shows was huge. And because of that and because of what was happening with her voice, she and her team are going to go on to make some very interesting decisions about how they put. price and sell their tickets coming into 25. And now with 30, as we just talked about at the top of the show, this residency is very clearly designed to protect her voice. She's not traveling. She is, all she has to do is get on a private jet and fly 45 minutes to Vegas. She sings two nights in a row. Then she gets five days of vocal rest, which is not something that happens usually during the course of a normal tour. She's out there playing every two or three days. Or a normal residency. Exactly. So, So if not for this throat surgeon, first of all, I mean, we talked about it before, but I mean, it may make her like, it's the equivalent of performance enhancing drugs because her voice.

It's Tommy John surgery is what it is. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Maybe she's like Bo Jackson. Like, she just, like, her talent just far exceeds her body's ability or capability to actually do it in any sort of extended period of time. It's like Tiger Woods right now. He just came out today and said, like, there's no way. I'm ever going to really be able to climb the mountain again

because my body just won't let me. Well, in her case, she was able to have a surgery that had fallen a lot of other artists. We know John Mayer had had something similar and sent her a note of kindness. You stay away from Adele, John Mayer. You hear me? You stay the fuck away, buddy. And so, you know, she'd gone through it. But there's always the yin and yang.

And in Adele's case, you know, she's got the most coveted voice since Ariel from Little Mermaid, but it is fragile. It is fragile. And without care, this thing can be destroyed. I wonder if my microphone just picked up me, like,

scream laughing at that Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Yeah, that's a very good one. Shout out Dr. Saitles. Seconded. Keep the shit away. But shout out to that guy because I think he got her back.

on track, but it does very significantly alter both the music that she makes going forward where I believe you can hear more interesting range and control than even she had on 21 and 19. And it definitely alters the way in which they roll out this phenomenon for people to see. Right. In the surgery, they, so Dr. Zidels, in addition to, to being the guy that, you know, you want to see in situations like these, notably did the same surgery on Stephen Tyler. Oh, Lord. But, I mean, you can see why Stephen Tyler needs it.

I mean, yeah, thank God. I mean, like. Maybe a follow-up. Think about how he sings walk this way. I mean, it's amazing that he can sing at all. He actually goes in monthly. He actually goes in monthly. His throat didn't quit.

His throat should just retire. Like, fuck you, Stephen. But the way that he does it, he shoots the vocal cords with lasers. Doesn't he Botox them too? Yeah, I think it's something like that, but there's lasers. Lasers? Well, it's like getting lasers.

I think it's very important that everybody knows there's lasers. She had lasers in her throat. Well, whatever happened, she now has control of absolutely everything that passes through that entire set of body parts. She's just incredible. And I really do think it gave her more range and more control, which is saying something.

I like your collaborator pick. Do we think Egg White got fired because of the melt my heart to stone, falling asleep at the controls situation? Well, I mean, you would think that maybe she would have fired him. But like, he wrote, take it all. That's true. Again. And they did a whole.

session with other songs. They just didn't use them. They stole say you, say me, and they stole desperado for that song. But it's fine, but Egg White's there. But I got to tell you, egg white, this time for me, is not the Easter egg. The Easter egg for me, and I mean, maybe you have one, I'm sure you have one that's more direct. On this one, I mean, I think this is the moment to talk about what makes her so relatable. Because there aren't a lot of Easter eggs that I can point. Like, we have no idea who this guy is who is behind this album, right? Think about a Taylor album or a Beyonce album or Ariana Grande album. Like, we know who is the guy behind the scenes. There's no experience of clicking through a, you know, People magazine online gallery of which

Taylor Swift's song is about which guy. And so much of the way they handled her music was treating her as this voice that needed a vessel. And I just wonder if for the listener, we treat her the same way. Like, we hear this voice and she becomes a vessel for relatability in part because we just don't know that much about her, do we? Yeah. No, we don't. And so my choice for Easter egg is in the sequencing of not just the, not just the,

album itself, but also the creation of it. And I think to your point, there's a connection between those two things because, as we've said, she goes other than the sessions where she did take it all and the songs that she ended up not using and it was too much like 19. She didn't want to do sad breakup album, but then they break up and she gets mad and she goes in and does rolling in the deep and those much more biting, angry, passionate songs. Right. She almost gets a little bit of cold feet, it seems like. And that's when she's doing, don't you remember,

which is a little bit more nostalgic. And there's this impulse that she described of going, oh, gosh, I'm making this guy sound all, all bad and so horrible. And I don't want it to be like. like that. Taylor does not have that problem. What did she say? I just don't think about them at all. I just don't even think about their experience, Seth Myers. I wonder if there are people who might think that they were the one you were singing about

if it's easier or far, far worse for them 10 years later. I haven't thought about their experience, to be honest. I think that's the biggest burn. But Adele was clearly thinking. about their experience and or thinking about the experience that she was going to have if this became a matter of public consumption. Yeah. Because there seemed to be an impulse to not just, just, right, this super seething, angry breakup album. Yeah. I want to ask you a delicate question in the best way that I possibly can, because in reading a lot of the reverect,

views of this album. There is a not so subtle discussion of her weight that now starts to creep in under the guise of her weight making her relatable to people. You know, she's almost like the anti-Gaga because she's not gimmicky, you know, she's not wearing the meat dress to the Grammys. The irony here is, of course, I would even take the almost like out, I think sort of publicly, she is, right? Like, who else is huge at this point? Gaga. Like, right? And the irony of that, is they're not that far off as singers. Gaga goes on and sings with Tony Bennett. Adele would be giant as a singer of the Great American Songbook,

because again, you know, is it appointment listening or are we there to hear her voice more so than the songs? But I do want to ask you, this is the moment where the discussion of her weight begins to be introduced by the people who are reviewing her album. And they use it in the context of her being relatable but it feels a little bit like that's just kind of a Trojan horse

for them to talk about her weight. What I want to ask you is, is it just a critic thing? Do her fans care about her weight? Does it really make her relatable? Is this actually a thing? Or is it just something that the press has turned into a topic of conversation?

So it's an interesting question. And we're talking about two different groups here, right? The press and then her fans. I think there's a third group. that's part of it, which is just the general public that maybe doesn't consider themselves huge Adele fans, but might listen casually and is sort of aware of stuff that's in pop culture news, right? Because critics aren't doing things just for the sake of, hey, I feel like writing about Adele's weight today. The ugly truth is that it gets attention. It gets clicks. It sells magazines.

Nobody talks about Chris Martin's weight. Well, right, because it's a woman. women. And women's bodies, for whatever set of reasons, are endlessly fascinating to people in lots of ugly ways. Does Adele's core fan base care about this? No, I really don't think so. I also don't think that the only people who, in kind of unflattering moments, choose to care about it, are the people who review Adele albums, right? There is a fascination one way or another quite, quite often with what famous women look like, right? And it's just something that, unfortunately, is often fair game to be up for discussion. And there are not a lot of examples of super famous, super successful performance.

performers who don't project a sort of unified standard of beauty. So it's very easy to under that guise sort of create a discussion about, oh, is she relatable because her body is shaped this certain way? Like, that's actually kind of ridiculous at its core. All you have to do is listen to her speak to understand that she relates to people because she's just a funny, interesting person, right? There's this sort of funny push-pull, especially when she performs, where it's so glamorous and she's just belting out these amazing songs and then she'll stop and she's

cursing and telling jokes and she just seems like she's your friend, right? I don't think the people who are paying that close of attention would ever feel like she's purely relatable because, you know, her pants size or whatever. but there is just a really, really ugly, strong tendency to talk about people, but particularly women in this way. Yeah. And the only male situation I can even really think about is Jonah Hill, when he lost the weight, people are like,

well, is he still funny? But it's not remotely comparable to this situation. And it does, as you say, it does plant the seeds for her weight loss coming into 30 and whether it actually matters. What I loved about that Oprah interview was she was like, I just can't, I can't wear that for you. I can't hold on to that for you. I've got my own life to figure out.

And there was something so wonderful about that answer, even though I'm sure that there are a lot of people who felt they're heartbroken, but the truth is like she's more relatable, in quotes, for other reasons. And I just wonder if this is an example of her being sort of used. as a vessel that we all pour our own stuff into to sort of pretend that we're connecting with her because she's just an easy vessel. People did it for her musically,

to her musically, and people have done it to sort of see in her what they want to see. She hasn't actually given us a whole lot, including lyrically on one of the largest albums of all time in 21. Right. Right. And an interesting thing about that is that in going back reading some interviews, she doesn't give a lot when she talks to the press, but she actually gives more than I remembered. For the most part, the experience of just not knowing very much about her is because she disappears. She just goes away through these long stretches of times and isn't there, isn't out talking to people, isn't doing all this stuff.

I was reading this Vogue profile from around the time that 21 was released. And this is when she started seeing her ex-husband, Simon. This is also a little bit before she gets pregnant. And she tells them about Simon. She's actually kind of open about certain things. She'll just say it. You know, she'll just, in her Adele way, just totally say it. But they were never out and about.

Right. And then she went and had surgery as I probably part of it. She has to sort of step away. But she's never on the scene. And I think it's an interesting nuance about her public display being relatively limited that she can sometimes be pretty revealing in small moments. But she's just not a constant presence in the way. that a lot of contemporary stars are. Well, I'll be interested to hear from the audience how they think about that particular issue, especially as we walk through this journey because it's sort of fundamental to the narrative of how somebody can get so big. She has to be appealing to a broad swath of people.

And she is, and I'm just so curious to hear how different people connect with her and why. Given what a huge artist she is, that means there are peak Adele moments on every single album. And so for me, on this one, on a business side for me, it was pushing back on a record label

on the arrangement of someone like you because that, again, took huge, huge stones. But really, the part that sort of warms my heart is this, it was urban legend, but then became confirmed that the giant big sounding, sort of serious set fire to the rain that is this sort of wall of sound almost harkens back to the Beatles. And this is the demo version that she put out to capture the emotion of the moment. And what a big, serious song was because she couldn't get her lighter working in a rainstorm.

No way. Yes. I don't know this. tell me. Yes, that's it. She was like, I couldn't get melody working in the rain.

It's like, that's what the song started from? Holy shit. That's the sort of wonderful duality of Adele, just this major song where she just soaring vocals and huge strings

and it's because she went outside and her lighter didn't work in the rain. That's even better. That's better than chasing pavements being about punching out her boyfriend at the pub. What's your piccadale? So, this is also

sort of about her, her physical presentation, but it's a little bit, I think, more fun. The beehive. This is when the beehive hairdo is introduced. The hair goes up. We are going up and out and big. Because for a lot of 19

and a lot of the tour and a lot of the press around that, she's got bangs in her face. They're kind of all over. the place and she's doing either a low bun or a ponytail or a short haircut. Was she fighting off the Amy Winehouse stuff originally in doing this? Do you think this is just returning to her natural state? That might be right. There could definitely be something there. Or there could be a little, you know, bangs is sometimes when you're young and a little bit self-conscious. Here we go. Here we go. You want to like cover, no, this is not about. You really have lots of opinions

about bangs. It really bangs for you. There. There's all sorts of reasons for bangs. You need to write a 10,000 word bees for the ringer on... Bangs are incredibly telling. No one just gets bangs without a reason for it, Nathan. Okay, okay. I don't know these things. And no one, no one gets rid of their bangs without a reason for it, right?

And the beehive, which, by the way, she told 73 questions when she did 73 questions that it gets a little smelly sometimes. What might people not know about wearing your hair and a beehive? Well, if it's your unnatural hair as a beehive, it gets a bit smelly. I bet it does. It's a beehive. But there is something interesting in... It's like Jack Dorsey's beard.

It's not at all, like... How do you know? How do you know? It's like Jack Dorsey's beard. Yeah, there you go. Same thing. You haven't been face-to-face with those guys. I think probably smells a way.

worse. Anyway, let's move past this. But anyway, smelly or not, it is one of, I think, the signifiers of her developing her stage style and how she dresses and presents herself when she's in public because there is a lot of sort of glamour and classic glamour associated with it, which is interesting when part of the conversation, and even when it has nothing to do with her body, is this idea of relatability? Yeah. It could also be sort of about that empty vessel idea because there are some elements that are, you know, she wears a lot of black. She wears a lot of, like, big concert gowns. And they are very glamorous, but they're not necessarily, like, she's not wearing a meat dress, you know?

No, she's not. She's not doing anything distracting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's sort of like a signature. It's a signature thing, but it's not at all distracting from the music and the voice. There's a class and a grace and an approachability to the outfit. I'm glad you chose the not being able to get the lighter, though, because I do think that set fire to the rain in a broader sense is also just somehow a,

contender here. It's just awesome. It's just so big. Yeah. So I'm glad we got to mention that. It is also my best vocal moment. Because they did it using her demo vocal.

And that song, I mean, the way that she says watch, the way that that cracks and rasps is so good. And that, and I'm with you that post-surgery, she has more sweetness, more control.

But there was something almost rough that she could get at this point. That is what she says she loses a little bit or she gains the sweetness, but she's not as raspy as she used to be. And I think that's really amazing. and she goes into the studio and she just does, her first take ends up being the one that they're like,

you know what, this is the one that we've got to use. Which is also what happened on rumor has it, as you said. Well, I think there are a lot of great vocal moments on this album.

I have a favorite that I don't think is the best demonstration of her voice by any stretch. But we talked about turning tables. I love the outro on turning tables. It starts with her using the lyric saying,

goodbye in that exact rasp that you talk about. But she finishes with a mirror of on rolling in the deep, on the outro of rolling in the deep, she's saying at all, at all. She mirrors that exact

vocal note and pattern at the end of turning tables. Exact same notes, the songs are in the same key. I actually think this is maybe the best Easter egg in addition to the best vocal moment. It is absolutely intentional and they are mirror images of one another and I'm absolutely certain that that was an intentional moment from her. Oh, that's awesome. That's a great Easter egg. I love that. Ethan, great job. Well, we've come to our favorite part of these podcasts,

which is if we had a T-shirt canon that we could shoot, songs out of into the sun. Which songs? Not our favorite part. This is my least favorite part. Well, this is where sometimes... It was admittedly easier on 19 than it's been at any other point. But... Okay. So it was easy on 19 because we had a whole cornucopia. We had a whole Thanksgiving cornucopia of things that we would ether. This is, may I just remind you, the 19th biggest selling album of all time, unequivocally

the biggest album thus far of the 21st century. There's some stuff to cut, Nora. What are we doing? So I am cutting the song that's not hers. I am cutting love's song. Fuck, yes, we are. Yeah, okay. Good, good, good, good, good. And I'm all for the cure.

I'm glad Adele loves the cure. That's great. Happy for her. What are we even doing here? We are going straight back to Mastro's Lounge. Yeah. Why did we have to go back to master? I'm like, oh, oh, the spicy Mamo Caesar salad sounds great.

I'll take it for $45? No, I'm out. I don't want it. No, I can make a Caesar salad for about eight bucks. No thanks. I am totally with you. I do have to say that I want to cut one and only. But, but I want to make that middle section between,

mean like 325 and 440 in the song where she's saying, I know it ain't easy, giving up your heart, nobody's perfect. Trust me, I've learned it. I absolutely adore. That should have been the song. They put this beautiful little break in the middle of just a bobo-ass song. So, like, extract that part, keep it, and then just dispense of the rest of the fat on that piece of meat in one and only. I do not know what bobo ass means.

What are these words you use? It's not good. I don't hate that song. I think there's like a little bit of sort of cheesy jam bandiness to it, but I don't know. You want cheesy jam band. If you want cheesy jam band. I don't want a lot of it. I don't want a lot of it.

But I don't mind it here. You're getting a lot of it and he won't go if you want. cheesy jam band. I mean, this is still, it's not Mastro's, but it's still kind of Yacht Club Rock. Oh, it is loungy.

Oh, it is Yacht Club Rock. Especially in the beginning, the intro, it's like, yeah. Someday, I'll be better way without you. They don't know you like I do. Oh, release this has a thought I knew. Yeah, and again,

it's not Yacht Rock. Okay? because like yacht rock you listen to on the boat and it's influenced by the boozy times on the boat yacht club rock is the band in the harbor bar at the club where you park the boat and that is what he won't go is although it could be a Michael McDonald

could sing this song he could yeah he won't go like yeah it would somehow it actually might make a little bit more sense yeah listening to this I mean, this is a Paul Epworth song.

I got a little bit more into it imagining. So Michael McDonald covered a grizzly bear song and a kicked ass. And I really think while you wait for the others, Michael McDonald's singing it is badass. Not Bobo ass. That is badass. Michael McDonald's singing he won't go. Let's make it happen to Dell.

But anyway, if you want cheesy jams, there you go. I still wouldn't throw that song away, though, because at least the bass is fun and all that. one and only and definitely love song. It almost felt like when you got to love song, I was like, are we running out of ideas? And then she comes back and just punches you right in the mouth with someone like you.

Yeah, for sure. Another reason to keep one and only is because the other co-writer, in addition to Dan Wilson, is Greg Wells, songwriter, worked with tons of artists, John Legend, Katie Perry, Celine Dion, ever heard of her.

But he also, did the production for Taylor's song from Cats. And if there's an opportunity to get a cat's reference in the Adele pod, we're going to do it. But he's a ginger cat. He's very tall and thin. Good Lord. I thought we agreed that that was just not,

we weren't going to pretend that that happened. No, you consistently asked me to do that and I consistently say no. Well, I'm, again, it did. happen. So I don't know why you insist on pretending that that cats actually happened. Although half the cast of that movie, if it actually did happen, was in the crowd at the Adele show. Yeah, because they're superstars. Because they were cats. Well, Nora, it's time for what is this British thing. I'm moments away from taking a flight to London. I'm going to go investigate for myself. But what I want to know is what is this British thing.

All right. It's the you in rumor has it. I mean, come on. Why is there a you in there? Oh, the actual letter in the word. Yeah. Rumor. Rumer.

Fair enough. Yeah, that's a great point. God damn it. I totally missed that. That's a good one. That'd be like if one of the songs was called Roundabout. But I... I...

Because for me, it's kind of the same thing. For me, it's at the end of Take It All, because instead of saying the word with, W-I-T-H, whereas on 19, she pronounced it with, W-I-F, here, at the very end of Take-It-All, she says wit, my love. Like W-I-T. Why is this? What's happened? What is this British thing? Her accent has changed a little bit when she sings, because in turning tables, when she says, when she says, when she says, can't. She doesn't say Kant. I can keep up with your turning table. Hmm.

There's a little bit of something morphing. She's shedding the twang. Where have I heard this before? Hmm. She's evolving. I mean, the thing... Her vows are growing up. Yeah, her vows are going to finishing school.

They're riding horses. Things are changing. but it's a very telling moment. She went from Whiff to Witt, and it's a British thing. So the other thing that I think gets an honorable mention here is her concert video, which was live at the Royal Albert Hall,

because it turned into a little bit of a blessing that before all of the stuff with her issues with laryngitis and then needing the surgery popped up, they had filmed a concert that was part of, that tour early on. And, you know, it's super rad. She's got tons of strings. It's all glam. She's in this iconic London venue. And they at least have something where they can put it out there and say, okay, if, you know, this tour is not going the way that we wanted it to go, having all sorts of

issues, having to reschedule, having to postpone, having to cancel a bunch of shows. But at least we've got this and what they had in terms of that show. And I actually don't know where it's available. in full, but you can see a lot of it on YouTube. It's great. So I think that counts. With this Beatles dock out, it's just a reminder how valuable this footage is going to be down the road. And all these artists are on camera so often. I saw the Juice World Doc. He basically lived his whole life, his terribly shortened life, on camera. And so I just can't wait for the equivalent documentaries that are going to come in 20 and 30 years because we just have 11 million times as much footage.

Well, and it's got to be a factor in some of the touring decisions, too, because if a lot of artists are identifying that they themselves are a finite resource, I love going to live shows. It's not the same to see something on your computer or your TV. But the production values for these things can be really high.

And if the decision point is either you get that or you get nothing, in some cases, that's worth doing. And I think this was one situation in which they were very happy to have done that. Well, speaking of songs played live and knowing that we sent Love Song absolutely into the sun, the question that remains before we grade this thing is what song should she have covered? All right. So we spoke at the beginning about how a lot of the inspiration for this album came from when she was on tour,

going through the South, hearing, listening to more country, listening to Bluegrass, listening to Roots. You've been thoughtful about this. Here we go. She also, on an international deluxe edition for the UK, Taiwan, Poland, and Bulgaria of 21. What?

Covered if it hadn't been for love, which is a song by Chris Stapleton's old bluegrass band, The Steel Drivers. And I want her to try him down if it hadn't been to love. And I want her to cover more Chris Stapleton songs. Agreed. So I would love to hear her do Tennessee whiskey

or broken halos. That would depend on what mode she wants to be in, right? Is she still trying to inject a little bit more positivity to this album? Or does she want to stay sort of melancholy and reflective towards the end here. She needs Bob. She needs rockers.

I think that's a great call. Embrace like, yeah. That's what I want. Full country. I think that's a great idea because what I was going to say to this, and now I fully reject my own submission, but it is,

I can't make you love me, which is the Bonnie Raid song that she started to cover and play live. And if we're going to put a damn, cover on this album. Put that on. Because no one has ever, Bonnie Vare, Adele, I don't know that anyone has ever been able to sing it quite like Bonnie Rae did with Bruce Hornsby on accompaniment. And I don't know that anybody ever can. But if there's one voice that I would have loved to have heard in session, in a recording session, sing that

song, it's Adels. Don't sell yourself short. I love that. And clearly she wanted to do it. Yeah, it's just, but do we need another piano ballad, right? That's what I'm like, do we need more desperado or are we through that? And every album she tells us, yes, you do. You didn't

think you did, but you do. But you do. You need it. And here is someone like you at the very end, just to just to prove you wrong. I don't know that really we're worthy of grading this album. given all of the accolades that it received.

But I do want to come back to the Rolling Stone writer Will Hermes, who was very, very harsh on 19. And I think for some reason, they handed him the opportunity to review 21. And he gave it three and a half stars with a pretty lukewarm review yet again. And I think that's probably why Will Hermes never reviews another Adel.

album for Rolling Stone again because it totally explodes and goes into the stratosphere. I could definitely cut things from this album, but Nora, you know, the people, give the people what they want. This album is an A with the conditional question that we're going to keep talking about through the rest of this journey, which is, is it an A because I go in specifically to listen to songs? Or is it an A because it is a vessel? into which I pour my stuff, and it feels good when it's on in the background, and it feels good when I feel some connection

to this supposedly relatable human being who doesn't tell me that much about her, but she wears my stuff well enough for me to feel kinship with her. This album is an A. Look, in Will's defense, we all... I was bullish on the Jacksonville Jaguars this season, okay? Like, we all miss from time to time.

Yeah, I asked you, I asked you if the Steelers were going to be good. I gave it an A-minus. And I have to say the one place where I'm definitely in a different spot than you are on this. The background music thing for me is not a way in which I'm listening to this. I'm frankly either going and listening to the songs that I like, which is more than half of them. Or I'm not listening to it at all. This is not an album that I put on to be ambient noise. Adele just doesn't do that for me.

Either I'm going to be in it and feeling it or it's just not going to be there. It's an A minus as an album. There's an A quality to just how big of a deal this was. But that is driven by the songs, by individual songs. And I think one distinction to draw, because we talked about some of the sequencing, I don't know, which also comes back up on 30. Does it run out of gas for you? So it's not necessarily that it runs out of gas.

It's that you do get a little bit of the story and the actual sequencing of the album itself where it starts off, you know, angry and bitter and then it softens a little bit. I don't know that there's effective sequencing beginning to end in telling a story here, which is the thing that she tried, I think pretty effectively.

to do with 30. I think the more effective storytelling through sequencing on 21 has to do with kind of the background story of how it was recorded, which songs came first, which ones came second, what she knew about this guy, what she knew about where their relationship was through that. But I'm not sure it's a masterpiece in putting songs in a certain order to communicate a whole story. And I think some of her trepidation about how that was going to impact, how she was seen, how this idea, even though we don't know who he is, of her ex and of that relationship was seen, I don't know that it fully like hits the bull's eye there. So I gave it an A minus because there are some weak songs here.

It sounds like you might want a novel more than an album. I'm a sucker for a story, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I hear you on that. I do want to just flag that this may be maybe the last time I talked to you down, but I think this is the first time you've ever come in lower

than I have on an album grade. So congrats to you. You called me over great inflation last time. I can't take that sitting down. Come on. I understand. I didn't think you were going to rank the 19th highest selling album of all time in A-minus. But that's probably because you really love those Celine. records and you're jealous. That's exactly it, Nathan. And on that note, this has been every single album. Adel, I'm Nora Pinciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you, as always, Dekiah McMullen, for producing this episode. We will be back next Monday to Breakdown 25.